rowan
Americannoun
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rowans
plural
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the European mountain ash, Sorbus aucuparia, having pinnate leaves and clusters of bright red berries.
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either of two American mountain ashes, Sorbus americana or S. sambucifolia.
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the berry of any of these trees.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rowan
1795–1805; < Old Norse *raun- in reynir, Norwegian raun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Native trees like alder, spruce and rowan are interspersed with hawthorn shrubs.
From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2026
Back at Lowfield Primary School, a handful of children gather around their new rowan, growing out of a hole cut in the artificial grass.
From BBC ● Dec. 4, 2023
The moose mostly ate birch, rowan and willow trees.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 11, 2023
Flavored with Scottish rowan berry among other botanicals.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 27, 2021
‘If the rowan leaves and the pouch couldn’t hide the river eyes,’ he said, ‘why do you think bark and wormwood can do any better?’
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
Among the pines grew rowans hung with scarlet berries, and bilberry bushes whose leaves would be fair game for white moth caterpillars in spring.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 25, 2020
Just as he reached the little lawn among the rowans he overtook him, toiling uphill, panting and calling, Frodo!
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Gurgi, sniffing hungrily, ran ahead and disappeared into a stand of rowans.
From "The Book of Three" by Lloyd Alexander
Nevertheless, he could not quite overcome his surprise when, after a short while, they indeed came upon a swift running brook winding its way through a stand of rowans.
From "The Black Cauldron" by Lloyd Alexander
Do you call to mind a place, Mackellar—it’s a little below Eagles—where the burn runs very deep under a wood of rowans?
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
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